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KDMC hosts Preventing Prematurity program Nov. 20

King’s Daughters Medical Center, in collaboration with the Prematurity Prevention Partnership, which includes the March of Dimes, the Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute, LLC, and the Kentucky Department of Public Health, is hosting a program Friday, Nov. 20, in observance of Prematurity Awareness Month. The program, which takes place 2 to 4 p.m. in the KDMC Health Education Center, will discuss the relationship between quality measures and efforts to reduce “before 39 weeks deliveries.” There is no cost to attend. To register or for more information about the program, please call the KDMC Department of Learning and Organizational Development, at (606) 408-4619.

Audience members will include pediatricians, OB/Gyns, neonatologists, primary care physicians, nurses, social workers, speech, occupational and physical therapists, respiratory therapists, health departments and allied health professionals with an interest in the impact of late preterm deliveries on infant outcomes. The keynote speaker for the KDMC program is Neonatologist/Perinatal Medicine physician Martin McCaffrey, M.D., associate professor of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, at University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, N.C., and also is a retired captain with the United States Navy. Dr. McCaffrey serves as the director of Perinatal Quality Collaborative of North Carolina. His talk is titled, “The Case for Quality Collaboration and the PQCNC Experience.”

Preterm birth is the number one cause of newborn death in the U.S. and is a leading cause of serious lifelong disabilities. Late preterm births are those that are before 39 weeks gestation. In a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, the U.S. ranks 30th out of 31 industrialized nations in overall infant mortality rates, showing 6.9 of every 1,000 live births resulted in death, and 1/8 of the births in the U.S. were preterm, a high rate compared to numbers from European countries. Kentucky ranks 46th for premature births and 39th for low birth weight babies among the 50 states. Yet, 62 percent of pregnant women in Kentucky polled in a recent survey reported they did not think preterm birth was a serious problem, or they were unsure.